A History of Innovation

In 1971, a group of radar engineers formed a company in south Alabama. Their dream was to develop and manufacture affordable, high quality meteorological radar systems and market them to the world. With corporate headquarters based in Enterprise, Alabama, they called their new company Enterprise Electronics Corporation now known as EEC.

By 1974 EEC was fully operational and producing magnetron-based C-Band and S-Band weather radars. In that same year EEC introduced its first major innovation – the Digital Video Integrator Processor (DVIP). As the first digital hybrid display, DVIP visually presented (in glorious black and white) six different intensities of rainfall, making it easier to accurately determine the level of rainfall in a given area. After the US National Weather Service selected EEC's DVIP-equipped radars to replace 160 older models across the country, DVIP became the standard for radar displays. In the early 1980's, EEC added the Digital Colorizer to the DVIP display, once again becoming the new standard around the world.

The next bold innovation from EEC hit the market in 1981. This development completely changed the very function of weather radar. Working with a group of engineers at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), EEC developed the RVP-01 digital signal processor. Using this processor, EEC designed a new weather radar for an Oklahoma TV station located in "Tornado Alley". It was the first commercial weather radar capable of measuring the speed and direction of an approaching weather event. They called it "Color Doppler" weather radar.

Even as Doppler radar became accepted around the world, EEC set the pace with more innovations. The ESP-7 signal processor was at the heart of RADSYS, the first PC-based weather display. And the first totally computer controlled radar and motion control system was based on EEC's Radar Control Processor (RCP). In the late 1980's and into the 1990's, broadcasters demanded more showmanship in their radar displays. EEC developed WeatherWindows, based on advanced display capabilities that leveraged modern graphics hardware from the Silicon Graphics Company. At the same time, traditional users expected a more sophisticated research-based application. EEC's response, EDGE, was specifically designed for advanced radar research, and remains very popular in the international market.

In 2005, EEC again shook up the weather radar market with the unveiling of Simultaneous Dual-Polarization – giving EEC the first commercially available dual-polarity radar system. Then in 2008, the DWD (Germany) selected EEC to design and build its national system of weather radars. Other nations soon followed including Austria, South Korea and Sweden. At the same time, EEC introduced new technical and product innovations including the IQ2 signal processor; and new radar architectures incorporating fiber-optics, advanced motion control systems, and new antenna designs. EEC collaborated with the University of Oklahoma on research and technology for dual-polarity applications and development of the low-power, portable solid-state Ranger X-Band system.

In 2013, EEC expanded its presence in the market with the acquisition of the satellite ground station division of Environmental Systems & Services Pty Ltd (ES&S). This move affords EEC the opportunity to further serve the growing needs of its clients. EEC's new satellite ground station product line, TeleSpace, offers an integrated system of hardware and software for the reception, processing, analysis, display and distribution of data collected from meteorological, environmental and
military satellites.

By combining its core strengths in the areas of in-house design, manufacture and production, and intellectual property, EEC has positioned itself as a market leader, complementing its high-performance meteorological radar systems with the ability to provide direct broadcast satellite ground stations and other applications to governments, academic institutions and commercial enterprises on every continent of the globe.

Dual-polarization pioneers

EEC shook up the weather radar market with the unveiling of Simultaneous Dual-Polarization – giving EEC the first commercially available dual-polarity radar system. We have developed better algorithms and end-to-end dual-polarization measurements which results in more accurate estimates of rainfall, but also provides better discrimination between different types of precipitation and non-meteorological signals.